A team of six GoodGymmers from five West London boroughs joined hands (not literally, one meter plus rule and social distancing put a stop to that, don’t worry Boris) to help out a local TRAID store.

TRAID are a charity that help to tackle the negative environmental effects of making, consuming and disposing of clothes, and try and promote sustainable fashion. There are stores across the capital, and tonight’s task took place at the Hammersmith & Fulham branch.

We were greeted by Marcos and Jade, who explained they were changing the whole store’s stock, and they rail-ly needed our help to get the job done. They had masked for our help to empty the rows of clothes and make sure the hangers were out of the way. Then the hangers needed sorting into the right boxes, and the clothes needed to be loaded into cages and bags.

The task maskers/mask masters got to work. Monika and Marieke were ‘hanging’ out in the back corner, taking tees and shifting shirts; and Michelle was on shoe-ty (shoe duty, get it?!) making sure that’s the pumps had pairs and the trainers were in two before bagging the boots and brogues up. Meanwhile, Ella & Ben were doing tee-riffic work emptying racks, making culottes of piles of clothes to be racked away, and Lucy had a jean-ius way of super efficiently getting trousers and skirts off the clip hangers. Ella cottoned on to the double handed unclipping technique with great satisfaction and made shorts work of the rail she was clearing off.

We worked our way down the shop, and before we knew it the rails were undressed, and it was about tidying up the ‘dress’ we had made. Hangers needed to be stacked in boxes, and when we had ran out of them, into bags. Then the clothes scattering the floor needed loading into cages, which Michelle and Monika took turns in sort of prodding and poking down into the cages with a long stick. Vegetable soup or vest-able soup? The offers today are tee and mint, or carrot and coat-iander.

The cages were filled, so we jumper-ed onto filling blue bags with the remaining piles of clothes. A quick game of that well known classic ‘who can push the boxes of coat hangers fastest across the floor’ and a little tie-dy up and rubbish collect by Marieke, we were done.

Six good deeds racked up - ‘top’ work from everyone.

Was it Monday? Was it Tuesday? It didn’t matter, because we all turned up at the right place on the same day for a H&F community mission. Eight of us came along for the ride, joined by the wonderful Michelle from Hounslow and Mike from Richmond, and we welcomed Ella for her first good deed with GoodGym H&F.

We know Flora Gardens quite well, having helped out on several group runs before. Mostly painting. A lot of painting. But something a bit different today, and we were greeted by a very enthusiastic Jeanette. Today’s task was to load up a skip with all the junk that was sitting in the orchard. Jeanette led us round to the school’s orchard, which did have an Apple tree or two in it, but also a huge pile of old plants, grass, bits of tree, wood, scooters, general rubbish and even a giant plastic connect 4 set. She then showed us the skip sitting in the other playground.

This was exciting enough, as despite all the tasks we had done at the school previously, we had entered a new land, and it was exciting to discover a brand new playground that we didn’t even know existed. Lucy tried out one of the scooters aimed for 4 year olds (it did match the GoodGym shirts...) and Jermain Beth-oe did her best footballer impressions with a slightly sad looking rubber ball, curling a shot to J-Amy Carragher and almost losing it on the roof.

Following the distractions, it was time to crack on with the skip loading. Between us, we filled up wheelbarrows, bins and giant sacks with the waste, and made our way to dispose of each load into the big yellow skip. Analiese, Chris and Mike did a wheely good job loading the bins and barrows, whereas Jeanette and Amy were apple-y helping sweep up the fruit that had fallen from the tree. Over by the skip, Michelle decided to take a jump into the dump to squash down the load (unfortunately we did manage to get her out in the end). Ella did a scootiful job making the skip filling nice and even; Beth branched out to carry giant antler-like twigs from garden to skip and Lucy got into a ‘sticky situation’, showing off her spatial awareness skills by getting stuck in the gates with her laden bags. Oh deer.

It wasn’t long before the skip was very full indeed. Chris pointed this out to Jeanette, and there was a moment of panic in case we had to unload, but in true Jeanette style she was nonplussed. She was just tree-mendously pleased to have a little bit of space in the orchard back.

Skip skip HOORAY. There was no room left at the inn, and we finished the task there. Now to wait for the skip to set sail, and return empty and waiting for the next episode of GoodGym H&F at Flora Gardens, hopefully to finish the job. Until then, we skipped off into the sunset, safe in the knowledge another community mission was completed. (Note: no one actually skipped home, we all walked or ran or cycled out of the school yard like relatively normal humans of society). Maybe that’s something to think about... instead of a group run, what about a group skip? Watch this space...

OH, WHAT A NIGHT AND WE HAVE LIGHT..whoop!!

A CHANGE OF PLAN TO THE ORIGINAL TASK

However a wonderful 4 k run in the light along the riverbank in Bath this evening for a spot of PLOGGING for 17 runners.

PLOGGERS AWAY

A warm up and headcount with a scone theme, jam or cream first?? Poor Mary had a hard life growing up so it was marg and jam but I’ll stick to jam first. A warning to stay safe and away from the water’s edge before heading along the riverside to Churchill bridge and the south side to the Quays and beyond to collect as much litter as possible.

HI HO…A PLOGGING WE GO

Gloves and litter pickers at the ready and they’re off along a stretch of the riverbank to see just how much litter we can collect in 40 minutes, to save our waterways and oceans from the increasing amount of plastics that are destroying our oceans.

A LOTTA BOTTLE

In fact we collected so many empty bottles topped with some unusual finds from a toothbrush charger to a swanky trainer but the prize goes to the guitar body ... Ta Da!!

WE ARE THE WASTE WARRIORS

10 bags later and a short PLOG back with a bit of weight lifting from the team just to prove we take the gym outdoors.

Thanks Emma for back marking and Joe for another fabulous pun... literally.

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE